Jasmin Sandelson

Jasmin is a writer, editor, and sociologist based in New York City. Her book, My Girls: The Power of Friendship in a Poor Neighborhood (2023: University of California Press), reveals the transformative power of female friendships for teens growing up in poverty. Her essays appear in The Sewanee Review, The Rumpus, The Georgia Review, Longreads, Hobart, and elsewhere.

She is currently finishing a memoir, In This House We Flourish, about coming out in adulthood, ending a marriage, and remaking a life. The memoir is a coming-to-queerness, a reclamation of body and self.

A second in-progress non-fiction project undertakes a personal reckoning with family mythology, intergenerational trauma, and the many facets of inheritance. Drawing on her professional experience working in criminal justice reform, the project asks: what is accountability beyond retribution? How can storytelling help heal harm?

Born and raised in London, Jasmin has a PhD in sociology from Harvard University and an MFA in creative non-fiction from New York University. She works as a Research Manager at Columbia University’s Justice Lab.